Communications Biology’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

Communications Biology’s most recently reported Journal Impact Factor is 5.8, for the 2025 JCR data year (the Journal Citation Reports 2026 release, issued June 2026), with the journal placed in JCR Quartile 1 in the Biology category. The preceding figure was 5.1 for the 2024 JCR data year (JCR 2025 release). Both values are reported by third-party JCR-tracking services rather than confirmed by CASRAI against Clarivate directly — see the sourcing caveat below before citing either. Communications Biology (ISSN 2399-3642) is a Nature Portfolio journal and is a different title from Nature Communications; the two carry separately computed impact factors and are not interchangeable.

What the number actually measures

The Journal Impact Factor is a ratio: citations received in a given year to citable items (articles and reviews) the journal published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of those citable items. Communications Biology launched in 2018 as part of Springer Nature’s Nature Portfolio “Communications” family and is indexed in Clarivate’s Science Citation Index Expanded, which is what makes it JCR-eligible. Because the journal is only a few years old, its JIF has been recalculated over a still-short citation history, and year-to-year movement in the figure reflects that relative youth as much as it reflects any change in the work being published.

Current figure — hedge before citing

Third-party JCR-tracking services consistently report Communications Biology’s 2025 JCR data-year Impact Factor (2026 release) at 5.8 and its 2024 data-year figure (2025 release) at 5.1, both in Quartile 1 for Biology. CASRAI could not independently confirm either value directly against Nature Portfolio’s own journal-metrics page for the title or against jcr.clarivate.com at the time this entry was written — nature.com’s journal-metrics and open-access pages sit behind an account-gated redirect that blocks direct verification. Treat both numbers as reported, not CASRAI-verified, and check the journal’s own metrics page or jcr.clarivate.com for the current, release-dated figure before citing one in a formal context such as a CV, grant application, tenure file, or funder report. CASRAI has deliberately omitted a five-year Impact Factor, an Immediacy Index, and an exact “rank X of Y in category” position, because none of those could be sourced to a primary record.

Communications Biology is not Nature Communications

This is the single most common error made with this figure. Nature Portfolio publishes both Nature Communications and a separate family of open-access “Communications” journals launched from 2018 onward — Communications Biology, Communications Physics, Communications Chemistry, Communications Earth & Environment, and others. Communications Biology is a distinct journal with its own editorial board, its own scope, its own article processing charge, and its own independently calculated JIF, which is substantially lower than Nature Communications’. Quoting Nature Communications’ figure on a Communications Biology paper — or the reverse — is a factual misstatement that a careful reviewer will catch. Neither journal is Nature itself, which is a third, separately indexed title with its own Impact Factor.

The open-access model and what publishing here costs

Communications Biology is fully gold open access: there is no subscription route, and accepted authors are required to publish open access by paying an article processing charge. The journal’s own Open Access Fees and Funding page states an APC of £3,250 / $4,390 / €3,650, subject to VAT or local taxes where applicable, with the price set by the date of acceptance rather than the date of submission; that figure was read from the search-engine index of the journal’s page on 7 August 2026, because the page itself is account-gated to direct retrieval, so confirm it on nature.com before budgeting against it. Springer Nature operates institutional and transformative agreements that may cover the charge for eligible corresponding authors, and offers waivers and discounts for authors based in the lowest-income countries. Check your institution’s read-and-publish agreement before assuming you will pay list price.

Scope, selectivity, and whether it is the right venue

Communications Biology publishes across the biological sciences, broadly defined — it is not a predatory venue and it is not a soundness-only megajournal in the mould of PLOS ONE. It sits deliberately between the two: it applies a significance threshold, but a lower one than Nature Communications, and it accepts transfers from more selective Nature Portfolio titles. That positioning is the practical thing to evaluate. If your work is methodologically solid and of clear interest to specialists in your subfield but was declined upstream for insufficient breadth of interest, this is the kind of venue the transfer system is designed for. If your budget cannot absorb a four-figure APC and no agreement or waiver applies, the JIF is not the deciding variable — the cost is. CASRAI has not published an acceptance-rate figure for this journal because no primary source for one could be verified; treat aggregator-quoted acceptance rates for it as estimates.

Worked example (illustrative, not the journal’s real figures)

Using round, hypothetical numbers rather than Communications Biology’s actual annual citation and publication counts: if a journal published 2,000 citable items across the two preceding years, and those items received 11,600 citations in the JCR data year, the resulting JIF would be 11,600 / 2,000 = 5.8. This is the same mechanical calculation Clarivate applies to every JCR-indexed title — what varies between journals is the citation and publication volume feeding it, not the arithmetic.

Why this number alone is a poor stand-in for quality

DORA, the CoARA coalition, and Clarivate itself all caution against over-relying on a single journal-level metric to judge an individual article or researcher. DORA’s core recommendation is not to abolish the JIF, but to stop using it as a proxy for the quality of a specific paper or the merit of an individual’s work. That caution has particular force for a broad-scope journal like Communications Biology, whose single averaged figure blends citation norms from genomics, neuroscience, ecology, microbiology, and structural biology — fields whose baseline citation rates differ by multiples. A 5.8 does not mean the same thing to an ecologist and to a cell biologist, and a specific Communications Biology paper does not “have” a 5.8.

Counter-example

Communications Biology’s CiteScore — Elsevier/Scopus’s competing metric, computed over a four-year window and a broader document set — is a different number from its Clarivate JIF, and reporting one as if it were the other is a common sourcing error. Similarly, the journal’s Nature Portfolio branding is not itself evidence about its JIF: portfolio membership and citation performance are independent facts, and the “Nature” in the imprint does not transfer Nature‘s figure to this title. And as above, quoting Nature Communications’ number here is simply wrong, not a conservative approximation.

Related terms

• Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — the general metric this page illustrates with one journal’s reported figure.
• Nature Communications’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — the title most often confused with this one.
• Nature’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — the flagship title, separately indexed again.
• Scientific Reports’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — Springer Nature’s soundness-based megajournal, a different model.
• PLOS ONE’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — the megajournal comparison point.
• Science Advances’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — AAAS’s open-access multidisciplinary title.
• CiteScore — Elsevier/Scopus’s competing journal-level metric, different window and denominator.
• Article processing charge (APC) — the fee model this journal uses.
• Gold open access — the publishing route Communications Biology operates under.
• h-index — an author-level metric, not a journal-level one.
• DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) — the reform commitment behind the over-reliance caveat above.
• DORA vs CoARA — comparing the two major research-assessment reform frameworks.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Communications Biology’s current impact factor?

Third-party JCR-tracking services report Communications Biology’s Journal Impact Factor at 5.8 for the 2025 JCR data year (the Journal Citation Reports 2026 release), placing it in Quartile 1 for Biology. This figure is reported by tracking services rather than confirmed by CASRAI directly against Clarivate, so check jcr.clarivate.com or the journal’s own metrics page before citing it formally.

Has Communications Biology’s impact factor gone up or down recently?

It rose year over year: from approximately 5.1 for the 2024 JCR data year (2025 release) to approximately 5.8 for the 2025 JCR data year (2026 release), both per third-party JCR trackers. Because the journal launched in 2018, its JIF is still being calculated over a comparatively short citation history, so year-to-year movement partly reflects that youth.

Is Communications Biology the same journal as Nature Communications?

No. Despite the similar name, Communications Biology is a distinct Nature Portfolio title with its own editorial board, scope, article processing charge, and independently calculated impact factor, which is substantially lower than Nature Communications’. Quoting one journal’s figure for the other is a common citation error.

Is Communications Biology open access, and what does it cost to publish there?

Yes, it is fully gold open access with no subscription route, and accepted authors must pay an article processing charge. The journal’s own fees page states an APC of £3,250 / $4,390 / €3,650 (subject to VAT or local taxes), set by date of acceptance rather than submission; institutional read-and-publish agreements or waivers may cover the cost for eligible authors, so check your institution’s agreement before assuming list price.

What is Communications Biology’s acceptance rate?

CASRAI has not published an acceptance-rate figure for this journal because no primary source for one could be verified. Aggregator-quoted acceptance rates for it should be treated as estimates, not confirmed figures.

Does a high impact factor mean a specific Communications Biology paper is high quality?

No. DORA and the CoARA coalition both caution against using a journal-level metric like the JIF as a proxy for the quality of an individual article or researcher. This caution applies with particular force to a broad-scope journal like Communications Biology, whose single averaged figure blends citation norms across fields such as genomics, neuroscience, ecology, microbiology, and structural biology, which have very different baseline citation rates.